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I am having a strange issue while trying to use MSI/MSP for installing and patching our product.

Its a 2 step Process:

  1. We are trying to work on the installation process of our product using MSI/MSP. In this a user asks a system admin to install product MSI using GPO over the network.

    Results: the Product installs successfully on user machine reboot.

  2. users request system admin to upgrade the product and the system admin uses MSP to patch the network installation using GPO over the network.

    Results: on user machine reboot the product is successfully patched with one issue.

ISSUE: Multiple shortcuts are created for the product. Our product has version number along with product name (abc 1.0, abc 2.0). so everytime MSP is applied it creates new shortcut on desktop and start menu.

Can someone please help me with how to remove the existing shortcut and have the new shortcut on users desktop and start menu?

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Jignesh
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1 Answers1

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Your patch installation process, and correspondingly the installer for the new version, should remove the old shortcuts. Add entries into RemoveFile table to remove abc 1.0 from desktop and Start menu; version 3.0 should remove both 1.0 and 2.0 shortcuts.

The patch does not remove those shortcuts automatically because the old version of the product is not uninstalled. Then your patch creates new shortcut versions.

Or just drop the version from the product version from the shortcut name. If you allow only version of the product to be installed, then the version number is irrelevant, see Microsoft Guidelines on Start menu for more information.

Alexey Ivanov
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  • Hi Alexey, First of all i would like to thank you for your response. I found the solution to this and did exactly the same what you have said. I added paths to shortcuts(Desktop/Program Menu) in RemoveFile table and everytime a new Patch is created it gets those difference in new and old MSI and when the patch is applied it accurately removes old shortcuts and adds new shortcuts. – Jignesh Nov 25 '11 at 17:34
  • Hi Alexey, i am trying to automate this and created a JScript which will add entries to RemoveFile table as POSTBuildEvent in Vstudio deployment project but i am getting error when i try to run this query. INSERT INTO `RemoveFile` (`FileKey`, `Component_`, `FileName`, `DirProperty`, `InstallMode`) VALUES (`_142D31F52C744D6FB945F01BA06EEFB3`, `C__931358B017AE83C769F5CB9E95BD2401`, `New Product 2.0.lnk`, `DesktopFolder`, 1). Can you please help me with this issue. Only error description that i get is "OpenView,SQL" – Jignesh Nov 29 '11 at 22:38
  • @Jignesh Have opened view on the MSI database? There are examples of editing MSI databases in the MSDN/SDK. – Alexey Ivanov Nov 30 '11 at 06:57